No Winter for Plants

September 14, 2011

Categories: Featured YuGiOh! Articles, Free Articles

by Ryan Spicer

Welcome back everyone! Is anyone out there having trouble figuring out what to play at YCS Toronto? Well today I have a special article that goes over a deck I built for a Box Tournament this past weekend and ended up going undefeated with it to score an overall 7-0 record in the tournament winning the whole thing! So maybe after this you will gain a little insight into what exactly you would like to pilot going into your next tournament! Lets jump right into the deck list and I will go over some choices and cover some of the matchups I faced and how I felt the deck faired. Comments are more than welcome, so be sure to voice your opinions because I am very interested in the results all of yall have been getting!

Plants
Monsters: 22
1 Lonefire Blossom
1 Dandylion
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up Bulb
1 Sangan
3 Tour Guide from the Underworld
2 Effect Veiler
2 Maxx “C”
1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning
1 Gorz, the Emissary of the Afterlife
1 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Tragoedia
3 Reborn Tengu
Spells:10
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Mind Control
1 One for One
1 Foolish Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Monster Reborn
1 Book of Moon
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
Traps: 8
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Solemn Warning
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force

Side Deck: 15
2 Cyber Dragon
1 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 D.D. Crow
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Smashing Ground
2 Dimensional Prison
2 Mind Crush
2 Royal Decree
2 Light-Imprisoning Mirror

Extra Deck: 15
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Formula Synchron
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Armory Arm
1 T.G. Hyper Librarian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Orient Dragon
1 Arcanite Magician
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Leviathan Dragon
1 Leviair
1 Utopia
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

With the deck list now out of the way, I would first like to start off mentioning the use of 2 Caius the Shadow Monarch. I mainly played two for the function it serves in effectively getting your Sangan into the graveyard, which can sometimes be difficult against a player who knows just how deadly a Sangan search can be. Caius also has an amazing effect that removes any card from the game and immediately simplifies the game. Caius does a great job of baiting out removal cards like Solemn Warning, Effect Veiler, and if your opponent doesn’t have an answer for it, removing opposing threats like the opponents Sangan, Darksouls, etc. I also felt that since I was running 3 Tour Guide, Call of the Haunted, 2 Tragoedia, and Gorz, that I wouldn’t have any problem with having a Caius stuck in my hand. Overall this was very true, and Caius was very helpful. But I also think that running 2 may be a little too much, and I am considering taking 1 out for either Pot of Duality, Gold Sarcophagus, or a 2nd Thunder King Rai-Oh.

On the last note of Thunder King Rai-Oh, I feel that it is a very strong choice for the format. It is extremely good against XX-Sabers, opposing Tour Guides, and generally has multiple uses against the top decks in the format. All of this on top of it being a Light and a 1900 atk monster all make for an extremely good monster in the form of Thunder King.

Maxx “C” I feel is very good, and it definitely won me multiple games on its own throughout the tournament. When you have it in hand and your opponent attempts to explode on you, you can discard Maxx “C” and put them in the position to either let you draw multiple cards, or just end what they were going to do and lose everything they have already committed to the field. I also main deck 2 Tragoedia, which compliment the Maxx “C” cards very well, because if your opponent does choose to keep going off in an attempt to beat you in one turn, you will have the opportunity to draw a lot of cards and possibly draw into Gorz or one of the 2 Tragoedia. In my original build of this deck, I was using 0 copies of Tragoedia, but I quickly saw the power it had in the Plant deck because sometimes you need to sit back and wait until you draw enough cards to pop off on your opponent.

Now onto the side deck. In my area, Agents, T.G. Skill Drain, and Plants are undoubtedly the most popular decks. Not surprisingly, in my opinion, those are exactly the top 3 decks in the format in my opinion, and my side deck reflects this. Cyber Dragon, Royal Decree, Dimensional Prison, Mystical Space Typhoon, Thunder King, and Smashing Ground are all very good against the T.G. Skill Drain deck that is played in my area, and all the cards I just mentioned get sided in against them. Basically the T.G. deck plays many traps so often times a single Decree can win you the game. Also Dimensional Prison gets around the T.G.’s pesky effects and serves as a form of protection against them and further more Horn of the Phantom beast. Smashing ground was used because the T.G. decks in my area use Thunder King Rai-Oh, Beast King Barbaros, and sometimes even Kycoo. For Agents I sided in Smashing Ground, Mind Crush’s, Light-Imprisoning Mirrors, Dimensional Prisons and my Second Thunder King. These are all choices that help in stopping Agents big plays. Venus is the core of the deck, and I feel that stopping Venus effectively slows down the rest of the deck and gives you time to have answers for when they do end up dropping Kristya, given you didn’t beat them before this happens. Many of these cards serve as a dual purpose. For example I will list decks that I sided certain cards for and just how multi-purpose all of these cards are.

Side Deck: 15
2 Cyber Dragon – Machina, Gadgets, Karakuri, Gladiator Beast, T.G. Skill Drain, etc.(sometimes even Agents)
1 Thunder King Rai-Oh – GB, T.G., XX-Saber, Plants, Lightsworn, Zombies, Karakuri, Agents, Six Sams, etc.
2 D.D. Crow – Plants, Zombies, Lightsworn, XX-Saber, Scraps, etc.
1 Mystical Space Typhoon – T.G., GB, Six Sam, etc.
1 Smashing Ground – GB, T.G. Lightsworn, Agents, Machina, etc.
2 Dimensional Prison – GB, T.G., Agents, etc.
2 Mind Crush – Lightsworn, Agents, XX-Saber
2 Royal Decree – T.G., and pretty much anything that is Trap heavy
2 Light-Imprisoning Mirror – Lightsworn, Agent, etc.

Obviously this is just an overview, and many of these cards have even more uses than is mentioned.
Now I would like to just mention what decks I played against and briefly how I felt my matchup was against each of these decks.
Round 1 Plants win Vs. XX-Saber
Round 2 Plants win Vs. Evil Agents(played Black Luster Soldier, Chaos Sorcerer, Junk Synchron, Tour Guide)
Round 3 Plants win Vs. LightSworn
Round 4 Plants win Vs. T.G. Skill Drain
Top 8 Plants win Vs T.G. Skill Drain
Top 4 Plants win Vs. T.G. Skill Drain
Finals Plants win Vs T.G. Skill Drain

So after 7 rounds I end up undefeated and thankfully I was prepared for T.G. Skill Drain, because that deck was just being played everywhere, and it was definitely the hardest deck to beat of all the decks I have played against this format. XX-Sabers were a surprisingly easy matchup, mainly due to the fact that I run Maxx “C”, Veiler and Thunder King all in my maindeck. Also Bottomless comes in handy in the matchup too. Agents were a Scary matchup, but thanks to all the cards I just mentioned that made XX-Saber easy to beat, all worked perfectly against Agents also. Next was Lightsworn, and even with the deck being piloted by SJC Champion Jason Holloway, the match was very tilted in my favor, and I was able to win the match within 5 minutes. I really don’t think Lightsworn is the way to go in the current Format. After the first 3 rounds, I played 4 T.G. Skill Drain decks consecutively, and let me say, it was definitely the hardest deck to beat. Some of the matches were very close to being lost against T.G. and the deck is very easy to play at that. If you are struggling with complex plays and want something easy to play, T.G. may be a great starting point for you. It is a very strong deck that doesn’t require too much player skill. Thanks to my side deck being very strong on monster removal and Trap negation, I was able to pull out and defeat all 4 T.G. decks.

Overall, it was a very fun tournament, and I learned a lot about the new format. Mainly I realized that T.G. and Plants are probably the top 2 decks in the Format, with Agents being a very close third, if not on the exact same level. I personally like Plants the best, and with the sheer amount of plays they have, I think any Pro should be using Plants for premier tournaments. The versatility and power they have was not taken away even by the Banlist. The only thing the Banlist did was take the intensity of their power down a few notches.

Until next time, I hope yall enjoyed my article and gained some insight from my experiences, and remember to be sure to come back for my next article! Leave your opinions and comments below!